The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus, a retransfer printer, and an image forming method, each of which form a color image by transferring inks of respective colors to a transfer target from an ink ribbon, on which a set of ink layers of plural colors are repeatedly coated in a conveying direction.
An image forming apparatus that is widely used forms a color image by transferring inks of respective colors to the same transfer region of a transfer target from an ink ribbon, on which a set of ink layers of plural colors are repeatedly coated in a conveying direction.
In Japanese Patent No. 4337582 (Patent Document 1), a retransfer-system printing apparatus is described, including this type of image forming apparatus. There are four plural colors of an ink ribbon for use in this printing apparatus: yellow, magenta, cyan, and black. The transfer target is a belt-like intermediate transfer film.
The printing apparatus described in Patent Document 1 attaches a thermal head with pressure onto the ink ribbon, while superimposing the ink ribbon onto the intermediate transfer film and moving the ink ribbon in the conveying direction, and then transfers the inks of the respective colors to the same transfer region (hereinafter, the transfer region is also referred to as a frame) in the intermediate transfer film one color at a time, thereby forming a color image.
The printing apparatus performs respective operations for each of the colors, which are separation of the thermal head, rewinding and cueing for one frame of the intermediate transfer film, and attaching of the thermal head by pressure onto the ink ribbon, in this order.
Hence, the printing apparatus executes four cueing operations (three rewinding operations) for the intermediate transfer film in order to form a color image of one frame, which uses the inks of the four colors.
The printing apparatus described in Patent Document 1 includes a retransfer apparatus, which performs retransfer operations of retransferring the color image, which is formed on the intermediate transfer film to a printing target such as a card, in addition to the image forming apparatus that performs the image forming operations as described above.